Masdar Ryketeng, Samsinar, Hariany Idris, Anni Suryani · 5 authors
This study examines the emergence of double-entry bookkeeping, memoranda, journals, and ledgers as the foundations of modern accounting from an accounting historiography perspective. Using a qualitative approach, the research employs a non-systematic literature review (non-SLR) of 26 national and international journal articles, supported by primary historical sources on accounting record systems. Data were analyzed through identification, classification, literature synthesis, and thematic analysis. The findings show that double-entry bookkeeping evolved gradually from medieval Italian trade through the development of memoranda, journals, and ledgers as tools for transaction recording, economic control, and trade documentation. This evolution was driven not only by commercial and technical needs but also by social, cultural, political, legal, and economic factors. The study also identifies a historical continuity between traditional ledger systems and contemporary accounting developments, including blockchain-based distributed ledger technology. It concludes that memoranda, journals, and ledgers form part of the multidimensional evolution of accounting knowledge that has shaped accounting practices from the medieval period to the modern digital era.
This study aims to analyze the role of autonomous agent-based Information Systems in Accounting (ISA) in managing the decentralized accounting cycle using a socio-technical systems approach in the private sector. The background of this research lies in the increasing demand for speed, accuracy, and transparency in financial reporting within the competitive digital business ecosystem. This study adopts a qualitative method through in-depth interviews and document analysis, supported by thematic analysis for data interpretation. The findings reveal that autonomous agent-based ISA enhances transaction-processing efficiency, reduces recording errors, strengthens internal control, and provides real-time financial information for strategic decision-making. However, its effectiveness depends on the alignment between technological and social dimensions of organizations, including digital competence readiness, employee acceptance of automation, and role restructuring. This research concludes that agent-based accounting systems are not merely digital tools, but strategic infrastructures that shape long-term competitive advantage for private-sector firms
Anas Ghazalat, Ala’a Zuhair Mansour, Shadi Maher Al-Khasawneh, Mohammad Abedalrahman Alhmood
Background SMEs failure is common within the first 5 years. For efficient resource management and improve corporate performance, SMEs need management accounting systems. Structure, strategy, and staff qualifications affect MAS adoption in organizations. Objective : This study aims to examine the effect of contingent factors in the adoption of MAS, as well as the effect of MAS on performance, and also the role of MAS as a mediator between performance and contingent factors in SMEs in Jordan. Methods PLS-SEM was used to evaluate a questionnaire of accounting department heads and finance managers from Jordanian SMEs ( N = 415). Results Decentralization, accounting staff qualification, differentiation strategy, and low-cost strategy directly increase MAS adoption. This study shows that MAS improve performance significantly. This study also shows that MAS mediate the relationship between decentralization, accounting staff qualification, differentiation strategy, and low-cost strategy and SME performance in Jordan. Conclusions The study found that contingent factors can help us understand how managers can use MAS information to improve performance. The results only somewhat expand the corpus of research on MAS’s usefulness, but they help us understand the aspects that may affect MAS design and performance in firms.
Abstract In this contribution to the Organization Zoo series, we examine Buurtzorg, a highly successful Dutch home care organization with over 14 thousand employees that operates without any supervisors or middle management. Given its size, it is a rare example of a self-managing organization that has radically decentralized decision-making to empower autonomous teams to operate highly independently while growing to thousands of employees. Buurtzorg’s case sheds light on the role of supportive structures, including purpose-built information and communication technology and a small team of internal coaches, that the firm uses to scale up a self-managing organization of over 900 independent teams.
This study seeks to analyze and clarify the process of budget implementation within the decentralized state services in light of the budgetary transition introduced by the Organic Law on Finance Laws (LOLF). Through this reform, Algeria has shifted from a traditional line-item budgeting system—based on inputs and financial means—to a program and performance budgeting approach that emphasizes future programs, measurable outcomes, and achieved results. The findings indicate that the previously adopted line-item budgeting framework no longer meets the requirements of modern public resource management, particularly in the context of digital transformation. This system relies on conventional procedures that fail to ensure the efficient and transparent management of state resources and capacities. Consequently, Algeria has adopted program and performance budgeting as a strategic alternative, marking the first step toward the modernization of its budgetary and accounting framework. Furthermore, the study concludes that the effective implementation of this new budgeting model and the attainment of its intended objectives require a thorough understanding of the reforms introduced under the LOLF and their practical implications for decentralized financial governance.
Massimo Sargiacomo, Daniel E. Martínez, Stefania Servalli, Antonio Gitto · 5 authors
Purpose This study aims to examine how hospitals and regional and local health authorities in the Italian region of Marche accounted for and reported the use of emergency funds from the EU, the Ministry of Economic and Finance and administrative bodies called actuator subjects. Unlike a sudden impact disaster, such as an earthquake, the pandemic was slow moving and novel. This meant that the guidelines for medical, legislative, financial and administrative action were not as developed as those for sudden impact emergencies with which the Italian state was, unfortunately, experienced. Design/methodology/approach The paper investigates the Italian public healthcare setting since the declaration of the State of Emergency until its end—that is, from January 2020 to July 2021. We conducted 31 semi-structured interviews with nine key-actors working for national, regional and local administrative bodies. A range of related official documents were analyzed. Findings We show a non-linear and emergent account of standardization and coordination. We show how different state and transnational actors developed their own procedures to standardize COVID-related cost classifications and reports. These attempts also involved coordinating assemblages, at the center of which are templates imposed on hospitals and regional authorities by national state entities for cost-reporting practices and aggregation. Importantly, templates’ visual features enabled coordination across the different standardization initiatives that populated the emergency response effort. Research limitations/implications The paper provides academics and policy makers with insights into the role played by accounting tools, templates, reports and guidelines to coordinate different cost standardization initiatives. Originality/value Accounting guidelines that standardize costs are known to be deployed hierarchically by states and transnational organizations for coordination purposes. We highlight, however, the emergence of not only hierarchical forms of coordination but also their interrelation with decentralized forms of coordination. These two types of coordinating assemblages, each standardizes cost through the accounting templates that they use. We demonstrate the emergent nature of coordination even within hierarchical entities like the state. Reporting templates are pivotal for understanding this coordination process. However, when a centralized coordinating body is absent, it is the visual features of accounting, rather than its imposition, that enable coordination.
Abstract Performance management in the public sector is both multifaceted and convoluted. This is particularly pertinent in hospitals, which are complex institutional organizations. Our paper explores the key drivers compelling Irish public acute‐care hospitals to monitor their performance. The context of our study is located against the unique historical backdrop of the Irish health service, whose evolution over time reflects religious control, underfunding by the State and reliance on a decentralized structure up until the early 2000s. This study was conducted during 2009–2010, in the aftermath of the financial crisis of 2008–2009. Interviews were conducted with members of the hospital executive management team, comprising clinical and nonclinical senior managers, using the framework of Kelly et al. (2015) to explore and analyze respondent perspectives. We propose that a combination of key forces, emanating from new public management, the institutional environment, and its constituent elements spurs hospitals to monitor their performance. The confluence of these forces reveals a perceived change in the institutional logic underpinning hospital performance management. This change involved the substitution of autonomous clinical decision‐making for a more team‐based managerial logic whereby clinicians engaged as part of a multidisciplinary executive unit and accepted responsibility for hospital performance. This paper contributes to the literature on performance management in public services and, more specifically, builds on and addresses the paucity of research on Irish acute‐care hospitals.
The accountancy profession of the twenty first century, and the roles therein, are rapidly evolving, transforming, and potentially contracting. As digitalisation deepens, the acceleration of Artificial Intelligence, robotics and distributed ledger accounting threaten to finally sound the death knell for the traditional ‘bean-counter’ stereotype. The purpose of this study was to examine the career boundaries of contemporary chartered accountants, to consider how boundary expanding is expressed in practice. Employing an ethnographical approach, the study investigated the lived experience of accountants’ career boundaries through the auto-ethnographical lens of the researcher, a chartered accountant herself. The research unearthed a rich and diverse collection of boundary-stretching and boundary-contracting case studies, spanning a full career generation, and contributes a new model of ‘career boundary elasticity’ which has implications for the accountancy profession.
Across industry and academia, there is currently much discussion about the implications of blockchain for accounting. We contribute to these ongoing discussions by critically investigating the claim that blockchain exists as a novel and foundational accounting technology. We do so by examining the central imaginaries associated with blockchain and investigating their incomplete crystallisations in the application of Bitcoin. This leads us to highlight three central features of blockchain accounting related to the changes in modes of organization, governance and trust, which we contextualize in relation to theoretical and empirical work. By doing so, we gain a nuanced understanding of the complex ways in which blockchain accounting and the processes and professional tasks commonly associated with accounting coexist and may interact.
Cory Campbell, Sridhar Ramamoorti, Kurt S. Schulzke
Abstract Rapidly evolving fintech and decentralized finance environments present an opportunity to reconsider how best to teach financial reporting, internal controls, auditing, taxation, and accounting information systems. Industrial firms have found considerable success in growing the customer value/cost ratio by applying “design thinking” (DT) to product and service innovation. DT may serve a similar, value-enhancing role in curriculum development and accounting pedagogy. The authors demonstrate the application of DT to the accounting curriculum using non-fungible tokens (NFTs) as an illustration. This chapter defines NFTs and DT, proposes a DT-based curriculum development model, and offers specific recommendations for teaching about NFTs in the classroom.
This study was about the civil service leadership role to implement civil service reform in Tigray Region. In Ethiopia, civil service leaders are required to contribute towards the development of public sectors. To this regard, the district level decentralization in Ethiopia let civil service leaders to provide high quality public services and to ensure freedom of choice and customer participation since early 1991.The 1990s was the period of change in government from Central Planning to Federal system. It was during this time that the government has tried to restructure the civil service system as a structural adjustment with federal outlook. Not only theoretically but also in practical discipline, civil service leaders have the responsibility to implement effectively government policies and strategies. It was with this intention that, the autonomous Ethiopia civil service institutions in general and that of Tigray region’s in particular were established and the civil service leaders were begun to operate independently the civil service organizations. It is believed that, a successful leadership is the cornerstone of government institutions to implement public policy which intern can have a direct impact on the development performance of a nation. However, some empirical evidence indicates that, the civil service leadership approach is inhibited by many administrative bureaucracies. Therefore, the objective of this journal article was to examine leadership role in implementing civil service reform in Ethiopia: the case of Tigray regional state. To examine the leadership role, the relevant data was collected both from primary and secondary data sources. Finally, the factors that impede the role of leadership to implement the civil service reform were identified and the discussion was concluded that regardless of the institutional framework in-place, the civil service leaders were ineffective and were not played their role effectively as a result of the inadequate appointment of civil service officials and process owners.
ABSTRACT This study focuses on three broad Finance organization roles: reporting, compliance, and internal control/risk management (RCCR); performance management; and strategic partner. Using data from a global survey of 832 firms, we examine the determinants of the various roles' importance and their relation with Finance effectiveness. While the effects of organizational change, market growth, international operations, firm size, decentralization, and industry on Finance responsibilities vary depending upon the role, we find little evidence of tradeoffs between the various roles. Instead, we find evidence of complementarities between roles, whereby greater emphasis on one role is associated with greater Finance effectiveness in the other roles. Additionally, we find that information system integration (ISI) not only has a positive direct impact on effectiveness in all three roles, but also interacts with the importance placed on RCCR and performance management roles to improve the Finance organization's effectiveness at carrying out these responsibilities.
Being asked to make a short speech as part of accepting the award inevitably leads to some introspection and reflection on major factors that have influenced one's career, be they events or individuals. Past recipients of the award have been very influential in putting management accounting on the map. Some have been instrumental in developing the way we think about management accounting and teach the subject; some have developed important perspectives such as information economics, combining economics with psychology, the importance of national culture, activity-based cost management, and balanced scorecards. The way these recipients developed their thoughts is well told in their acceptance speeches and collectively provides a wealth of ideas and a historical perspective on the development of our discipline.I commenced my studies in economics, and I maintain a keen interest in economic approaches to management accounting. However, early in my academic career, I was pressed into considering an organizational approach to management accounting, not because it was an easier option; rather it addressed the world of management accounting within which I found myself. In this address, I will share with you some personal reflections on the process of my discoveries in the area of organizational approaches to management accounting from the mid-1960s.The backdrop to this address is that research is something of a growth model. Stage 1: starting from a baseline of skills and knowledge gained at undergraduate studies; stage 2: progressing through refinement of skills with more graduate study; and stage 3: consolidating through work toward publications and other academic outputs. Stages 1 and 2 are somewhat planned and incremental, while stage 3 is more often associated with less ordered processes, often stumbling across potential research areas by way of reading and personal interactions. Research projects can be focused around existing ideas, sometimes being somewhat formulaic, sometimes highly innovative. Often ideas can be serendipitous and develop in unpredictable ways. The key is to recognize when there is a management accounting angle that will relate to an important organizational or social issue.I initially thought I would pursue a career in science; however, when it came time to enroll in an undergraduate degree, I selected economics. In the 1960s, economics degrees in Australia were focused on macro- and microeconomics with a strong orientation toward public policy. Macroeconomics examined the behavior of entire economies such as overall price levels, unemployment rates, inflation, and the like. Microeconomics studied the behavior of individual decision-making units, be they individual consumers or organizations, and typically how decisions by these units are coordinated by the market mechanism. While there are many crossovers in examining macro- and microeconomics and both are required to educate economists, most students developed a preference to specialize in either macro or micro issues. I had a preference for matters related to microeconomics.Microeconomics stressed the importance of prices, income, and quantity from the perspective of consumers. Consumer choice was examined by way of indifference curves and budget lines. Market mechanisms were studied mostly assuming perfect competition. Theories related to production functions and cost curves heralded a need to consider the nature of the technology of the firm. Costs were separated into marginal, average, and total costs. Fixed and variable behavior was defined, with the curious idea of marginal fixed costs flagging that costing was deserving of more attention. Marginal analysis and profit maximization required understanding cost behavior, and the various time lines on decisions. Economic profit was seen as cleverer than accounting profit as it included a charge for capital, a notion that sparked much debate later in accounting on issues such as residual income and shareholder value models. Looking back, contemporary management accounting had much to offer these traditional theories in microeconomics as it can unpick the nature of costs and their behavior depending on activity, time, and the nature of decisions involving costs.In some courses, malfunctioning market mechanisms were considered with the economics of environmental protection, including energy and natural resources, flagging an area that would be important in management accounting 30–40 years on. I found these particularly interesting, but public policy in the 1960s was not as focused on the environment as it is now. Other topics that received limited attention but enough to whet the appetite were the economics of poverty, inequality, and discrimination. This list of issues from basic microeconomics is only illustrative of topics, but there are strong echoes in this 1960s material of research agendas that have captured the attention of management accountants over the past 20 years.It was common in Australia during the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s for individuals to go overseas to undertake graduate education, typically to the U.K. or U.S. However, in the mid-1960s, after completing my undergraduate degree, I was keen to enter the workforce and joined a bank as an economic researcher. I was involved in doing feasibility studies for client firms. After a couple of years, I decided to undertake a master's degree in financial management at Southampton University in the U.K. This was my formal introduction to more advanced ideas in finance, financial and management accounting. The area of financial accounting was heavy with theoretical debate on the meaning of income and asset valuation, with theories of finance being articulated and refined. Management accounting was pragmatic and practice oriented with the principles and practices being articulated in well-crafted books published out of both the U.S. and the U.K. In the main, theories were borrowed from financial accounting and finance to consider issues such as valuation, income, and discounted cash flows. There were some spirited debates on issues related to measuring income within divisionalized organizations and the transfer pricing issues that this might generate.Also, management accounting academics provided scholarly accounts on the application of operations research techniques to management accounting issues, such as linear programming and simulation. This generated much excitement but did not seem ever to fulfill its full promise. One suspects that the changes envisaged by the techniques were never accompanied by considering people and implementation issues in innovations driven by formal model building. In the 1990s, management accountants would address these implementation issues, in some depth, when considering changes accompanying the introduction of activity-based accounting and performance measurement systems such as balanced scorecards.On completing my master's degree, I accepted an appointment at Sheffield University. This opened up a new world of management accounting thinking, for me, being led at that time by Tony Lowe and Tony Tinker. While my background and predilections led me to study management accounting from a traditional economics approach, the Sheffield school was developing a much more sociological and critical orientation. More generally, these ideas were being advanced in the U.K. by scholars such as Anthony Hopwood, Wai Fong Chua, David Cooper, and others. While my background and orientation constrained my motivation to embrace these ideas fully at this time, the approach did open my mind to examining the assumptions behind many of the economic theories I had learned in my economics degree and graduate finance courses.My curiosity to examine economic theories with modified assumptions can be traced back to my work on feasibility studies and business plans for firms while working at the bank. Assumptions of rational behavior and perfect knowledge did not fit the business folk with whom I worked in both large- and medium-sized client organizations. While I knew that there were works in economics that had developed theories with assumptions that were flexible and realistic, I had not studied these in depth. My growing awareness that organizational context and individual behavior could be captured in solid economic theories derived from work on the behavioral theory of the firm (e.g., Simons 1947; Lindblom 1959; Cyert and March 1963), from economists who examined the behavioral ramifications of growth models (e.g., Penrose 1959; Marris 1964) and the ideas of Williamson (1975) on differences between market and non-market decision making, management, and service provision. These works had theoretical elegance combining economic and behavioral theories and resonated with my state of mind at this stage. Consideration of these works can still provide insights related to management accounting research and organizations, as can more recent work that focuses on economics and psychology.At about the same time, I became aware of another line of research that was examining diversified firms. The work of the business historian Chandler (1962) examined how divisionalized organizational structures were a response to growing diversification in U.S. firms. There followed a series of studies that examined this association between strategy and structure in the U.S. (Rumelt 1974), U.K. (Shannon 1973), France and Germany (Dyas and Thanheiser 1976), and Japan (Suzuki 1980). This was my introduction to the idea that an administrative arrangement might develop to suit a type of strategy. These studies followed an approach that was emerging known as contingency theories, or more correctly, organizational theories following contingency frameworks.More comprehensive contingency approaches were developed and articulated in the U.S. by Lawrence and Lorsch (1967), Thompson (1967), Perrow (1967), Galbraith (1973); in the U.K., Woodward (1958), Burns and Stalker (1961), the Aston school lead by Pugh and associates (Pugh et al. 1963); and later in Australia by Donaldson (1987). I found that these works combined interesting theories that context mattered when considering administrative change, and the ideas were embedded in practice. These works had a profound impact on the study of organizations and still provide important insights relevant to contemporary settings. Systems theory was also popular in some quarters but perhaps became overly complicated when applications were considered (Bertalanffi 1968). However, the seeds of configuration approaches can be seen in this thinking and important ideas, such as equifinality, are relevant to recognizing that different management control systems (MCS) can suit similar contexts.Around 1973, I returned to Australia, taking up a position at Macquarie University. 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Today, the controllability principle appears throughout the management accounting literature (Merchant, 1985, p. 21). Historians trace the origin of the principle back to the founding of American railroads. Charles Perkins, who was president of the Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy Railroad in 1885, is quoted with the following statement: “It is obvious that to hold a manager responsible for results it is necessary to give him pretty full power over the property which he must use to produce those results” (Chandler, McCraw, & Tedlow, 1996, p. 26). At that time, companies were confronted for the first time with the problem of managing people who worked at considerable distance from central executive offices (Simons, 2007, p. 2). With companies being structured into decentralized and autonomous divisions, questions arose as to the best way to control such organizations (Sloan, 1963, p. 46). Results control instead of direct supervision of behaviors and the corresponding management by objectives (MbO) school of thought (Odiorne, 1965) gained in importance (Giraud et al., 2004, p. 3). It is Solomons (1965, p. 83) who closely relates the controllability principle to the decentralization of business operations. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
ABSTRACT This paper reviews the significance of military cost accounting practices used during the U.S. Civil War. Many of our modern cost accounting practices were derived from those utilized by the U.S. Army from 1861 to 1865. Cost accounting practices were vitally important during this period in order to properly manage all expenses relating to men and Army accounting clerks and quartermasters were taught comprehensive accounting principles and practices at West Point. These practices were also used in military institutions such as the Springfield Armory. The majority of these military cost accounting principles are still in use today. Historical practices such as cost identification, cost classification, and budgeting (cost management) continue to provide modern business managers with the ability to effectively and efficiently control and manage expenditures. INTRODUCTION Modern business firms utilize a variety of cost accounting practices in an effort to manage expenditures and maximize profits. The origin of many of these can be traced to cost related principles taught by military institutions. This paper will first review the development of cost accounting prior to the Civil War. Cost accounting principles and practices developed rapidly during the early 1800s. Prior to that date, very little effort was made by business owners to classify and manage various costs. The bookkeeping principles introduced by Pacioli in 1494 were little changed until the turn of the nineteenth century. The second portion of this paper contains the major theme of this paper. It is the importance of the cost accounting practices used by the U.S. Army during the Civil War. These practices were quite revolutionary for the period and allowed the army to accurately classify and manage expenditures . Instructors at West Point were some of the leaders in the analysis and management of expenditures. They developed an accounting system that identified and classified all costs related to men and materials. Since the cost of the war was so enormous, the United States Government required adequate cost accounting from all military units of all expenditures for payroll, materials and supplies, food products, hired workers, and all other military costs. Without proper cost identification, classification, and management, the Union Army would not have succeeded in its war efforts. Seven cost related reports are included in the appendix and reviewed in this paper. The final portion of this paper reviews the importance of Civil War era cost accounting practices on modern procedures. These early practices have continued to be beneficial today in the effort to identify, classify, and manage costs. The cost accounting contributions of the military during the early to mid-eighteenth century have provided a theoretical basis for the accounting systems of today. Modern business firms continue to refine these principles in an effort to operate in a more efficient manner. EARLY COST ACCOUNTING HISTORY Prior to 1800, there was minimal interest in the process of identifying and managing costs. Accounting texts published in the United States in the late 1700s utilized the concepts of double entry bookkeeping that were originally published by Pacioli in his Summa text of 1494 (Previts & Merino, 20). Later, English textbooks by Oldcastle in 1543 and Peele in 1553 were, in effect, restatements of the principles introduced by Pacioli more that fifty years earlier. English accounting texts of the late eighteenth century were distributed in Colonial America and served to educate many notable Americans including George Washington. Washington kept personal ledgers that contained cash accounts with debits on the left pages and credits on the right side pages (Cloyd, 88). In addition, Washington regularly utilized a text called Bookkeeping Methodiz'd written by Scotland's John Mair in 1736 in an effort to maintain control over various farming cash receipts and expense accounts. …
Companies can no longer perceive themselves as stand-alone entities in the business environment. As a result of major trends such as Globalization, Outsourcing and Off-shoring, companies have more and more begun to perceive themselves as part of a chain (or network) of companies. With the increased length of chains and the increased interdependencies between organizations, coordination between such entities has become increasingly important. Due to the fact that Supply Chain (SC) decision making is distributed over various players, one of the key managerial challenges in any SC consisting of autonomous organizations is to align decisions. Typically, each organization will take decisions to optimize its own performance. But what is best for an individual organization is not always best for the SC, so that un-aligned decision making usually leaves the SC in a state of sub-optimization. Contract mechanisms might be useful to tackle such challenges. Ideally, contract mechanisms ensure that the SC is optimized as if it were a single unit (coordination) and is designed such that all players benefit from working together through the coordinating mechanism (win-win). A SC is said to be coordinated (or optimized) if it achieves the same profit as it would in a centralized situation (or full partnership). Furthermore, win-win is said to be achieved if all the players in the SC make greater profits when compared to the decentralized decision-making situation. The effectiveness of contract mechanisms lies in their design; the decision-making authorities remain unchanged, but the incentives of the various SC entities are aligned in such a way that optimizing one’s own situation “automatically” optimizes the SC. This dissertation aims to devise contract mechanisms in various SC settings. As such it contributes to the understanding of where and how such mechanisms can coordinate operational and marketing decisions across autonomous organizations and lead to win-win. The focus is on a range of operational and marketing decisions like pricing and replenishment, promotions, service level and assortments (number of products in the product line). The typical setting is as follows. In a two player SC with a Supplier and a Buyer, the Supplier sells the product at a wholesale price to the Buyer. The Buyer then fixes the final selling price and sells it to the end-consumer. In a traditional decentralized situation, the Supplier charges a higher wholesale price and the Buyer charges a higher retail price and orders a lower quantity than what is optimal for the entire SC. In this setting contracts like revenue-sharing and quantity discounts are designed and analyzed which can induce the Buyer to fix the final selling price and order quantity at the SC optimal level. In essence, the contract mechanisms coordinate both pricing and replenishment decisions and provide win-win opportunities. Similarly, when the end-consumer demand can be influenced by promotions, it is shown that non-optimal promotional decisions are made in a decentralized situation. A new rebate mechanism is designed to coordinate the promotional decisions and provide win-win opportunities. Furthermore, it is shown that contract mechanism can coordinate service level and product line decisions and provide win-win opportunities. gned and analyzed to address the issues of coordination and win-win. In all models studied, we were able to find at least one mechanism for achieving coordination and providing win-win opportunities. Furthermore, relationships between the parameters of different contract mechanisms are established wherever possible. Also, the different mechanisms have been analyzed and reviewed from an implementation perspective. In this flat (globalized) world, we believe that incentive alignment will help businesses to deliver value to their customers and maintain or enhance their competitive positioning. Therefore, in our view, this thesis will aid businesses with an important tool in aligning the incentives within their SCs.
The performance of the public sector affects us all. There are at least three reasons why we should be interested in how well it functions: it is big; its outputs are special; and it is getting bigger. With all these, in Romania, the performance within the public sector represents a concept not so analyzed and rarely applied in practice. There is not the same situation in countries with a high developed economy, which represent an interest for us, along with the European integration. Internationally, since the 1970s processes of modernization and reorganization of public institution have been initiated in diverse countries in the world. The society has demanded greater efficiency in rendering of services, a better application of public resources and also questioned the effective bureaucratic model. In this context, the model of managing government institutions gains force, consistence and become more credible. Flexibility, decentralization, creativity, autonomy of management, and a management contract used as quantification instrument are basic characteristics of the management reforms that focus on results. Results determination within the public sector and the implementation of a system meant to measure the financing and non-financing performances need an exact definition of the objectives and purposes of each organization and constituent institution.
In a pioneering work, Jeffrey Fear overturns the dominant understanding of German management as "backward" relative to the United States and uncovers an autonomous and sophisticated German managerial tradition. Beginning with founder August Thyssen - the Andrew Carnegie of Germany - Fear traces the evolution of management inside the Thyssen-Konzern and the Vereinigte Stahlwerke (United Steel Works) between 1871 and 1934.". "Fear focuses on the organization and internal dynamics of the company. He demonstrates that initiatives often flowed from middle managers, rather than from the top down. Shattering stereotypes of the overly bureaucratic and rigid German firm, Fear portrays a decentralized and flexible system that underscores the dynamic and entrepreneurial nature of German business." "This work will generate much debate among historians, organizational theorists, and management and accounting scholars.
The competitive position of companies is increasingly linked to their capacity to attract and retain competent personnel. Human resources management, in particular compensation, is a crucial component of this quest for competencies. Yet companies must choose between several types of compensation policies. They must determine on which basis to select a policy so as to maximize the effectiveness of the compensation system. These choices may be linked to external strategies of the company, e.g. diversification, differentiation, or internal strategies such as autonomous work teams, total quality and participative management. This article therefore attempts to analyze the extent to which external and internal strategies identified by companies dictate their choice of compensation policies. In other words, do companies that adopt particular external and internal strategies also opt for differentiated compensation policies?The data were collected by a questionnaire mailed to vice-presidents and human resources managers of Quebec companies in competitive sectors. We received 252 usable questionnaires, equal to an 11.4% response rate. The variables have been grouped into four main categories: compensation policies, external strategies, internal strategies and control variables. By means of a multiple regression analysis using the forced entry method we have tested the contribution of each category of variables, thus allowing for verification of the hypotheses formulated. The control variables were entered first in a single block, followed by the external strategies and internal strategies. Utility tests were performed to verify whether the order of entry of the variables influenced the results obtained.The principal findings suggest that internal strategies dictate the choice of compensation policy to a much greater extent than do external strategies. In effect, companies seek above all to create internal coherence among their HR policies and organizational development strategies. For example, companies that rely heavily on autonomous work teams, engage in more participative management and promote quality management have compensation systems that are less traditional and characterized by a greater emphasis on performance, transparency of information provided to employees and, to a lesser extent, leader pay policies and decentralization of decision-making, which is consistent with the literature. Regarding the impact of external strategies, our results are more mitigated. Only competitive strategies emanating from business units exert a slight influence on the choice of compensation policies. Moreover, corporate strategies such as degree of diversification do not affect the choice of compensation policies. This type of strategy is apparently too far removed from the concerns of HR managers. Lastly, of the control variables examined, unionization plays the most determining role in the choice of compensation policies. In fact, this variable is the most consequential in our analytical model. This result raises important questions about the importance of the strategic approach to human resources management and reinforces the relevance of exploring institutional approaches to compensation policies.
This study examines organizational structural changes within the finance and accounting function following the adoption of new information system. Many accounting researchers have predicted changing environment and role for management accountants resulting from competition, regulation, and manufacturing and information technology (see Baker, 1992; Cooper, 1996; Cox, 1992; Drucker, 1990; Elliott, 1992; Epstein, 1993; Ezzamel, 1994; Flamholtz, 1992; Johnson and Kaplan, 1987; Kaplan, 1984, 1986; King et al., 1991; Madden and Holmes, 1991; McNair, 1996; Siegel et al., 1997; Shea and Kleinsorge, 1994; Spicer, 1992; Tyson, 1996; Weaving, 1995). Disagreement exists regarding the nature of the changes, and whether is actually taking place. Cooper (1996) foresees an increased need for management accounting, but decreased need for management accountants. He predicts the management accounting function will be decentralized to those on the shop floor. After new management accounting systems are in place, m uch of the day-to-day management accounting can be transferred to the workforce (Cooper, 1996: 36). Elliott (1992) also predicts an increased reliance on blue-collar workers as they become knowledge-workers, and part of the aggregate brainpower of the organization; they are supposed to help figure out how to improve quality, speed production, and contribute to customer satisfaction. The management accounting department may adopt supportive and monitoring role rather than more proactive decision-making role, as advocated by Kaplan (1995) and Boer (1995), among others. study of the evolving role of management accountants, King et al. (1991) report that a sea of change is taking place as management accountants become more proactive in the decision-making process. McNair (1996) disagrees with the premise that management accounting has become more relevant. In general, we see desire for change, but little evidence that management accounting has had the courage to let go of its ties to financial accounting and external reporting requirements (McNair, 1996: 40). According to McNair, there has been much discussion about changed emphasis in management accounting, but she describes the changes as old wine in new bottles. Since the early 1980s, numerous research projects have been conducted to gain better understanding of the management accounting function in organizations (Keating, 1995) and to develop theoretical basis for management accounting research in the future (Kaplan, 1986). This article seeks to add to that literature by identifying changes taking place in accounting functions as hypothesized by set of literature-based expectations. The most significant finding of the study is support for flattening the organizational hierarchy and developing networked organization within the accounting function. The levels of management within the accounting function at one site were reduced from four to two over the course of five years; accountants began reporting to supervisors located at sites worldwide. At the second site, shared services activities were centralized at one location for the North American continent. The centralization resulted in reduction of accounting function costs from 1.7 percent of sales to 1 percent of sales. Our study reveals that accountants became less involved in many routine tasks of cost accounting and began providing support role both to plant personnel and to business managers in making strategic decisions. The remainder of the article is divided into four sections. The next section develops three research propositions for fieldwork, based on review of the accounting, information technology (IT), and organizational literature. Then we consider research design issues including site selection, field research, and data sources. After this we present the field research findings in relation to our research propositions. The final section discusses conclusions, limitations, and opportunities for future research. …